


But The Tears Won't Fall

by dudesbeinggay



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudesbeinggay/pseuds/dudesbeinggay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce has a depressive episode after E3, and it's like pulling teeth for James to find out what's going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But The Tears Won't Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have depression, so I think this will be a fairly representative story. Writing shit like this tends to beneficial for me when I'm in a funk. I don't presume to know the mental state or health of any members of Fh or RT/AH, this is purely fictional.

Bruce has depression and he gets that about-to-cry feeling but he never can, he’s repressed crying for so long he can’t even remember why, he just fucking sucks at it.

He’s not ashamed of his depression, per se. He just doesn’t need people knowing about it. He can be normal and have depression, after all, he manages it fine most of the time. If he’s alone on bad days, he tells James or the guys he doesn’t feel like hanging out, and waits it out. They’re far enough between.

Except after E3, when they’ve been crazy busy and Bruce has been insanely stressed but repressing it as much as possible, and getting pretty much no sleep and not enough food, it hits him - he knows when he wakes up the next morning and still feels down, like crying would make him feel better, like the world is a little bit darker.

 _Fuck_ , he thought. Usually he could get through work like this, but they’d be recording a ton today to make up for missed content during E3.

He got through it. He knew he was a little off, but they recorded everything and Bruce stuffed his feelings back into the box in his brain as far as they would go.

At 5pm James found Bruce sitting at his desk staring ahead.

“Hey!” James said, slamming on Bruce’s desk. Bruce startled and looked up at James.

“Are you okay?” James asked, like he was talking to a small child.

Bruce got this unreadable look in his eyes, but a mask came up fast. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, looking away from James.

James didn’t buy it one bit, but they were all tired from E3. Except this didn’t seem like tired Bruce. Tired Bruce would just mean he was getting the fuck out of work as soon as possible and going to hybernate like the bear he was.

Bruce spends the next day going through the motions, but he can feel himself withdrawing, unable to put up that brave, happy face any more. He keeps brushing James off, and then he hates himself and hopes James doesn’t hate him and he wants to cry but he can’t. He goes home and goes to sleep right away, wants to avoid as much of the world as possible, except when he wakes up in the middle of the night he can’t sleep so he takes too-hot showers and plays video games for about 5 minutes before he realizes he isn’t having fun. So he just lies there, for that first night and the next.

Wednesday he’s irritable. He hasn’t really been eating, if he’s honest with himself, and his sleep schedule is all fucked up.

“Are you serious?” James half-shouts at Bruce, after he’s refused to go to lunch with them. The rest of the guys head out with wide eyes, not wanting anything to do with whatever’s about to happen.

“What? Yes!” Bruce doesn’t really understand what’s happening, he’s still just talking. He just didn’t want to…you know. Eat lunch. Or be around people. He still just wanted to cry.

James stalked up to Bruce’s desk and glared down at him. “What the fuck is going on with you? Do you wanna fuckin’ break up, leave Funhaus?”

Bruce has no idea what to respond to that, just looks up at James with what he figures is a really fuckin’ lost looking expression.

James closes his eyes, swallows and takes a deep breath, probably is even counting to three in his head.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You just…won’t hang out with us, or me,” and James looks sad at that and Bruce wants to stab himself in the stomach for putting that expression on James’s face. “Is something wrong?”

James sounds earnest. Bruce even forms the words in his head.  _I have depression. I’ve actually been having a really hard week. I don’t know what to do._

“I’m just tired.”  _Great job, Bruce. The lamest fucking excuse in the book._

Bruce sees disappointment in James’s eyes, at least that’s what he thinks it is - a tiny rational part of his mind is saying  _he just wants you to be happy_ , and to spend time with him, but the ‘everyone-hates-me-I’m-the-worst-person-alive’ part is screaming over it.

Bruce leaves without a word to anyone, he just can’t do it. He closes his apartment door and sinks to the floor immediately, back against it with his knees hugged to his chest. He’s a big guy but he’s never felt so small.

He wants to cry so bad.

Eventually he realizes this isn’t doing anything, so he goes to sit on the couch. He thinks about putting on the TV, or making dinner, but he can’t move. What’s the point of doing any of those things? He tries to remember the last time he showered. Yesterday?

Who cared. No one, that’s who. Look at him, alone in his apartment. Pitiful. No one cared. James was going to leave him - did Bruce even ever have him? How could James feel the same way?

He didn’t belong in Funhaus. He wasn’t funny, or good at editing - why the fuck was he there? And the boss, at that?

Bruce was too emotionally exhausted to think of anything worse about himself- for about three seconds, before shit about his appearance started popping up, all this shit.

His phone buzzed in his pocket - he’d completely forgotten it was there. Emotionless, he checked his texts.

James <3, 5:42pm  
_I miss you_

He wanted to just mechanically put the phone down but a small still voice inside his head SCREAMED at him to text back, to not throw this good thing away.

5:44pm  
_I love you_

He missed James too, but that had been enough, right? It wasn’t like James actually wanted to read what he had to say, anyways.

James <3, 5:45pm  
_Please tell me what’s going on_

That gave Bruce pause. His mind felt blank, thoughts, pros and cons, were running through his head so fast. He’d had two partners who he’d told about his depression. One had gone well, when he was younger, a girl named Jessica with beautiful brown eyes - they broke up but it was good, they even caught up some times still. It was never because of his depression.

He’d told a boyfriend once - he didn’t even want to think about his name ('Neil, Neil’ echoed in his mind) who’d used it against him. That relationship…it was a story for another time. One of the lowest, darkest moments of his life. Well, months.

He wanted to cry again.

His phone buzzed.

James <3, 5:56pm  
_I love you too. I just want you to be okay_

He used that to bring something inside him up. He’d needed time, but he was having a 'lucid interval’, he thought, smirking slightly.

Before he could take it back, Bruce’s fingers tapped out a message and hit send.

5:58pm  
_Please come over_

He wanted to add  _I need you_  but he didn’t. 

5 minutes passed and everything came crashing down.  _What if I said the wrong thing? Fuck, now I have to tell him. He’s gonna break up with me. I can’t believe I haven’t eaten in so long, I’m so stupid._

15 minutes passed and Bruce was up and about, cleaning random shit, trying not to stress out about the fact that James wasn’t there yet. If he’d left on his motorcycle when Bruce had texted him, he should be here by now.  _Right?_

Bruce gritted his teeth.  _I need you. I need you._  It was on the tip of his tongue - or fingers, maybe?

Bruce was standing in the middle of his apartment, paralyzed with everything running through his head, when he heard two soft knocks at the door. He wanted to take a step towards it, to run towards it, but he stayed frozen in place.

“Bruce?”

That voice made Bruce melt a little. But he was so afraid of everything that would happen when he opened that door. It would knock down all his walls, he’d open himself up raw to another person-

“Bruce, please open the door.” James sounded…concerned? Like he was talking to a small animal?

He just sounded like he loved Bruce. Before Bruce could change his mind he strode over to the door and opened it.

There was James, wearing his motorcycle jacket with his helmet in hand. He was soaked head to toe from the rain, but all Bruce could see was the hopeful look in his eyes - darker than usual but still just as beautiful.

“Uh…uh,” Bruce said intelligently, then he stepped backwards, allowing James passage. He’d been there a million times before, it wasn’t different at all, except it was so different. When Bruce was in a depressive episode he was different, his apartment was different - fake, empty, cold - the whole world changed.

James walked in and set his helmet on the counter, took his jacket off as well. He looked around the kitchen. Bruce had never felt awkward around James before in his life. Not before then, anyway.

“You eaten dinner yet?” James looked to Bruce, who shook his head.

“Mind if I whip something up? I haven’t either.” Bruce again shook his head, before he realized James couldn’t see that as he surveyed the kitchen for what ingredients Bruce might have.

“No, that’s-that’s fine,” Bruce said, but in his head he continued  _you don’t have to, I’m sorry I’m so fucking awful._  Bruce closed his eyes against the thoughts and against the tears that weren’t going to come anyway.

James started making noise in the kitchen, just moving around at a steady pace.

Bruce couldn’t breathe, he was gonna throw up- “I-uh-bathroom,” he mumbled and he all but ran into his bedroom and the attached bathroom. He couldn’t look up at the mirror, but he put his hands on the sink, leaning some of his weight onto it, and tried not to hyperventilate.

He counted his breaths- in 1, 2, 3; out 1, 2, 3. He kept doing that and his head began to clear -  _jeeze_ ,  _he was lucky he didn’t have actual panic attacks_.

He sucked it up and like many things that day, decided to return to the kitchen/living room area before he could change his mind.

James didn’t turn to look at him when Bruce walked in, though in the small space you could obviously hear him approach.

“Almost finished,” James announced. 

Bruce walked over and poked his head around James, feeling slightly more together now, and more confident. He looked at the pan James was using - looked like some kind of Peruvian stir fry.  _Aww. Bruce loved that, James was the only one who he’d ever had it from but it was fucking delicious. And James knew that too._

Bruce couldn’t help but grin. Then the feeling came crashing back.  _Cry._ His heart was telling him to, his head, his face, but he couldn’t, he never would, it was hell.

“I have depression,” Bruce said, and then went wide-eyed.  _What the FUCK!? What part of his brain had thought saying that was a good idea, he’d like to have it removed immediately._

James slowly put down the spatula he had in hand, turned the heat down, then looked at Bruce. While Bruce appreciated the controlled movements, he was fully aware of the fact that he still had a deer-in-the-headlights look plastered on his face.

James swallowed; he was choosing his words carefully. He met Bruce’s eyes and Bruce couldn’t read the feeling there.

“Is that what’s been going on?”

Bruce nodded. The smell of the stir-fry hit his nostrils and he held onto it like a mountain climber at the edge of a cliff, struggling for purchase.

James just looked at Bruce, waiting patiently. Bruce saw no pity in his eyes - he just looked like he was listening.

Bruce sighed, looked down at his ( _stupid_ , his brain supplied) Converse, then back at James. If he was gonna do this, he’d try to do it right.

“I’ve just been having a really hard couple of days.”

“Did…I do something?” James sounded- nervous? Unsure? Words Bruce was pretty sure he’d never used to describe James before.

“No,” Bruce said, breathing deep. “It’s just…”  _My stupid fucking body. My stupid brain._

Bruce had to turn around, the tears were welling up in his eyes, they were so close to falling.

“It’s okay, Bruce,” James said, and the dam broke.

Bruce spun back around and immediately wrapped his arms around James’s waist and buried his head in his shoulder. The tears were falling, yup, lukewarm down his face and it felt good and awful and at first he tried to be silent but James’s arms came up to hold him and he felt safe so he just cried, he sobbed and soaked James’s t-shirt.

He thought it would never stop - it really might not for a while, so he pulled away. James just looked - loving, and concerned, and  _god damn, James was so wonderful, how could Bruce have a guy like James in his life?_  And the the tears were still flowing, every thought another drop in their supply.

He lightly held James’s hand and turned to lead him to the couch. Bruce sat down, and James plopped down next to him, looking nervous.

Bruce hiccuped, then smiled self-consciously.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his tears away (as small ones still fell).

“N-” James stopped himself. He was out of his depth but he was trying, he didn’t want to lose Bruce, he wanted to do this right.

“Thank you so much for telling me,” James said, and he tentatively reached out for Bruce hand to hold. He played with it, moving his thumb in circles on the back of Bruce’s hand as Bruce spoke.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t before. I was really stressed out because of E3 and it triggered an episode, I guess,” Bruce said, shrugging.

“You know.” James said, before looking up with a little bit of fear showing in his eyes, now far lighter. “You  know that’s why - I mean, right? From the stress and stuff, that’s a trigger for you?” 

Bruce’s tears appeared to have actually stopped, but James didn’t want to reach up with his free hand to wipe them away, he didn’t want to call attention to it or distract Bruce in any way.

Bruce swallowed then broke their eye contact, looking away for a bit. “Yeah, I do.” His voice was steadying too, he should’ve been proud of himself.

He didn’t know what to say next but physically the conversation was affecting him, making him swallow and grit his teeth and squeeze James’s hand and fuck, he felt like a malfunctioning robot.

“Did I do anything wrong?” James asked.

 _Honesty is the best policy, right?_ Tears returned to Bruce’s eyes - apparently his brain had remembered more stress to let out. “Uh…” Bruce’s voice was high as he told James. “It wasn’t great when you yelled at me today,” Bruce said, huffing a self-deprecating laugh. If he’d looked up, he’d have seen the awful look on James’s face, shocked and guilty, like he’d kicked his own puppy.

“I’m so sorry,” James said, and he grabbed Bruce’s other hand, forcing him to make eye contact - and Bruce did see all those things in James’s eyes.

“It’s fine,” Bruce reassured. “You couldn’t have known.”

“No-well-but…” Bruce could see the wheels spinning in James’s head. “I won’t do that again. No way.”

Bruce smiled. “It’s bound to happen sometimes.”

“But not because your brain’s screwing you over!” James half-shouted, making Bruce smile even wider. Damn, he really was lucky.

James looked serious again, and Bruce’s expression fell to match it.

“Tell me what else is wrong. I don’t know enough about depression, tell me if there are any like, symptoms I can help with.”

Bruce laughed nervously, wrapping his free arm around himself. He couldn’t look at James because he knew he was about to be too honest and James would be disappointed with him.

“I haven’t really…eaten, much. Or worked out.” He looked up at James. “And my sleep schedule’s kind of fucked.”

“Bruce!” James shouted, and he smacked Bruce’s shoulder with the back of his arm. He looked genuinely concerned for about 0.7 seconds before the fact that Bruce had just asked him not to yell at him came to mind.

“No squats?” He made sure to sound horrified.

“No squats,” Bruce said, smiling and tearing up at once.

“Okay, well-” James made some space. He couldn’t not address the fact that Bruce wasn’t taking care of himself.

“Please…tell me when you’re like this. I want to try to help.”

Bruce nodded. He wasn’t sure how James would help, but the offer felt more genuine than any he had heard before.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.”

Bruce laughed, looking at James confusedly. “How would you know?”

James shrugged, still looking grave. “I don’t know, but I hate that all this shit was happening and I was just home playing Layers of Fear and grumbling to Elyse about how you weren’t hanging out with me.”

Bruce still felt like there was a hole in his chest, but so much better. He knew that a good cry often worked wonders, he just meant it - he really wasn’t good at that stuff.

Bruce took a deep breath, brushing the last of his tears away. “I really needed that.”

James held both of his shoulders, fixing him with his most serious look yet. Bruce hadn’t even known James could look so serious.

“Any time, Bruce. Tell me what’s going on - especially if it’s like E3 and you know it’s gonna get worse. I’ll try to be here.”

Bruce swallowed, tried to pull back a little, but James’s hands held him in place. “That’s okay,” he said.

“Bruce,” James told him. “I mean it. We hang out all the time. It’s the same as that, only a little bit more important. I obviously enjoy spending time with you.”

But James can tell he’s not getting through to Bruce, so he leans in close, so his face is only inches from Bruce’s. Bruce is used to the motion enough that he doesn’t even flinch.

“Can I kiss you?” James asks.

Bruce nods. 

“Are you sure?” James asks again. Bruce is trying to think if he’s ever been this careful about consent, but vaguely realizes that it’s because Bruce is usually the one 'leading the way’.

“Yes.”

James starts by kissing Bruce’s cheeks - they’re salty from all the tears that flowed down, and his skin is cool and soft. He kisses the edge of Bruce’s beard, his nose, and finally lands on Bruce’s mouth. James’s lips are soft against his own, and Bruce feels back in his element - he moves his hand so that he pulls James in at the waist, tilts his head so he can deepen the kiss. He moves just so that he elicits a moan from James, and he feels abundantly satisfied. He pulls back before the moment becomes something entirely different.

James looks a little bit wrecked, a little dazed, when they pull apart, and Bruce can’t help but smile and press a few kisses to his cheeks.

James shakes it off.

“Move in with me.”

Bruce isn’t even-

_Wait, what?_

“What?”

“Seriously,” and Bruce shrugs a little, because okay, James does look back together, this is a real offer.

“That’s…” His mind is whirling - that’s so different than any way he’s lived-

“Not a big step at all. We’ve known each other for years. That way I’ll be there.” He doesn’t have to explain what he means.

“Plus we can have more fun like this,” James wiggles his eyebrows, and Bruce’s eyes are drawn to his lips which are a little swollen, more pink than usual, and hey, that’s not a bad point.

“What’s the downside?”

James does look a little vulnerable now, but Bruce is feeling open, so he’s just honest. “I’m scared.”

“The offer’s on the table whenever you’re ready…Can I stay tonight?” James asks, and Bruce nods.

“Okay. Great,” James says, hopping up from the couch and holding a hand out for Bruce, apparently going to just ignore the fact that he’s hard in his jeans - Bruce can see it.

 _Maybe I’ll do something about that later_ , Bruce thinks mischievously.

“C'mon, let’s go back to the kitchen, the food’s cold.”

“Okay,” Bruce says, and he smiles and it feels real, and he doesn’t have to cry any more.


End file.
